What is RelyLocal?
A healthy community depends on a healthy economy, and both completely depend on the local businesses in Racine and Kenosha! There are a number of great studies out there that illustrate how shopping locally will stimulate the Racine and Kenosha economies.
Simply put, more money spent with local businesses stays here (about 68%), where much less money spent with national chains stays in the area (only about 14%), and money spent online... well... simply leaves. Forever.

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Going out of business is all the rage these days! In this economy, many small business owners are going out of business. Here’s a few tips to keep up with this growing trend…

10. Act like you’re the only shop in town. If you’re serious about going out of business, you need adjust your mindset; denial is a powerful tool in going out of business. Ignoring the fact that there are other small businesses like yours in town gives you a sense of entitlement to local residents’ business and makes you less apt to listen to customer feedback. What’s that you say? You really are the only one in town? Don’t worry. With your bad attitude, someone else who wants to succeed in business instead of fail will replace you before long.

9. Treat your customers badly. People expect a superior experience from small businesses because, let’s face it, you can offer it. But should you? Not if you want to go out of business! If you treat customers badly, they might come in, but they won’t be back. With fewer and fewer customers coming to you, you’ll be well on your way to going out of business.

Watch this great example on how to treat customers badly. This couple, featured on the reality TV show Kitchen Nightmares uses customer reviews to their advantage. They ignore negative customer feedback which, especially in a customer service business like a restaurant, is a roadmap to failure-town.

8. Don’t show up during your posted hours. Treat your business like a hobby. A hobby is something you do for fun, whenever you feel like it, for pleasure and relaxation. If you consistently ignore your posted hours, there’s a good chance you will miss customers who show up when you said you would be there. Will they be back again to bring you business? Not likely.

7. Keep your business a secret. If people don’t know about you, they can’t bring their business to you. Small businesses are naturally harder to see than big businesses because of their physical size and smaller advertising budgets. Why spoil this natural advantage with bold, visible signage, smart locations, and attractive window displays? Small, unattractive, and subtle = virtually invisible. Losing!

6. Community schmommunity. You might have had help starting your business, but you can get out of it. All. By. Yourself. Other small businesses in your immediate vicinity create synergy and foot traffic that help everyone stay in business. Don’t get sucked in to helping other small businesses and local charities, or they might help you! Certainly don’t cross promote other businesses. Again, that will lead to more business coming in your door which will delay going out of business.

Don’t be wooed by the siren song of small business communities, such as RelyLocal, and the like. These only serve to strengthen the voice and presence of small businesses in the community, thwarting your efforts to go out of business.

Along these same lines, try to manage all aspects of your business alone. Disregard other small businesses with services that would help you be more successful, and save you time and money. Our goal is to NOT be successful. Stay focused!

5. Don’t pander to customers’ laziness! Customers can be so lazy. They don’t want to work for anything! If you make customers work to find what they want, they certainly won’t be back. With any luck, they won’t find what they’re looking for at all!

Consider each aspect of a customer’s experience from the time they walk in your door:

Showrooms should be over-crowded and difficult to navigate.

Shelves should be disorganized.

Menus and signage should be vague and unreadable.

It should be difficult to pay.

I know these changes may take some effort at first, but just remember, who wants empty shelves? You’re much too busy to constantly stock shelves. You’re going out of business.

4. Fuel your business with wishes, not a business plan. This is especially easy if you’re newly in business. New businesses close all the time without even trying, simply because they didn’t account for all their ongoing expenses, or thought customers would magically come to them in droves. On the other hand planning ahead by saving enough money before you go into business may delay going out of business…indefinitely.

3. Never change. The customer is not always right http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBSGLVfoJyo. People need to adapt to you. This is YOUR business. Put your foot down and tell your customers how you see yourself: perfect as you are. If they have the audacity to show up two minutes before opening time. Turn them away, with a little shaming for good measure. They don’t like the service you provide? Excellent. They can find another service provider. Whether they know it or not, they’ll be assisting you toward your goal of going out of business.

2. Remember, you ARE the victim. Three words: blame, blame, and blame. Blame the city, the weather, your customers, your location, the economy, the Chamber of Commerce… anything but yourself! I don’t mean to harp on this, but going out of business starts with your mindset. If you accept responsibility for lagging profits, you will spoil your blissful ignorance of changes you can make to grow. On the other hand, shifting blame to things outside of your control is a surefire way to go out of business.

1. Act like the internet doesn’t exist. The internet is everywhere nowadays. Going back to point number seven, if you’re trying to go out of business it’s important to keep a low-profile. Don’t have a social media presence. Blogging, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google +, Instagram, etc. are all ploys to get customers to connect to you, follow you, understand what you do, and eventually BRING BUSINESS TO YOU.

If you are already on the internet (sorry!), apply the first nine tips to your online presence as well. For instance, criticize people online who rate your business poorly, make your online presence ugly, confusing, and free of pesky facts such as open hours and location, and help your website maintain a degree of secrecy by hiding it from search engines! If your potential customers can’t find your website, it’s as if it doesn’t exist to them. Whatever you do, avoid effective tools, like RelyLocal, as they serve to help more people in your community (e.g. your target audience) see your website, and again, bring you more business.

Finally, if you’re confused about how to act like the internet doesn’t exist, remember this mantra: if it was good enough twenty years ago, it’s good enough for today.

Monday, September 16, 2013

Mario Robinson is one of the founding members of CoK, and
the host of Jokerz cc, Mario has opened for Eddie Griffin, Carlos Mencia, and
John Witherspoon.

As much as Ryan loves talking about himself, he has always found the idea
of a bio kind of silly. But when you want people to take you seriously as a
"professional" comic there are some things you must do. He (still
talking about Ryan) started doing stand up at the end of 2010, people laughed
at his jokes, which was nice, so he decided he would keep telling them. As
you can see it is now 2013 and he is still telling them and that is why you
are reading this information. He also produces 2 monthly comedy & music
shows in Milwaukee, one at Cactus Club and the other at Sugar Maple with his
production company Inventing Situations. He has had the opportunity to
open for acts such as Ari Shaffir and Johnny Beehner, but today he just wants
to make you laugh. So please do.

Josh Ballew is a Milwaukee comedian with a big heart and
bigger hair. A man of many hats and wearer of none, Josh takes inspiration
from his own life offering a lighthearted view on some of life's biggest
questions. A member of Milwaukee's Caste of Killers Comedy Collective, Josh hosts
the bimonthly Open Mic Killer Mic at The Art Bar in Riverwest in addition to
being a co-host of Levity Radio which can be heard every Tuesday at 8pm on
www.riverwestradio.com

Greg Bach will be your MC for the evening. He has been
performing improv, standup and sketch comedy since 2007. He has performed at
Sherman Perk, Karma Lounge, ComedySportz and the Alchemist Theatre.

Make your
reservation today, tables available only to the first 40 people (per showing),
limited standing room available thereafter. Please call 262.770.4297.

envi
is an environmentally conscious 3 story ultra lounge featuring a modern dynamic
cuisine, specialty drinks made with fresh juices and herbs, and dancing on
Friday and Saturday nights. Please visit envi’s website for additional
information; www.enviultralounge.com.

Sunday, September 1, 2013

JENGA: Playing Games With The Local Economy

Get Involved, Local Business is our foundationHave you ever played the game JENGA? It’s a fun-yet-terrifying game, the one with the small rectangular blocks of wood that are stacked in perpendicular rows to create a large tower while your job is to take turns at removing blocks from the lower tower in order to stack them on top to create an even taller tower. Of course, the fun (stress) of the game comes from knowing that you can only build a tower so tall before it all comes tumbling down in a deafening and messy crash on the dining room table.The moral of the story is, the local economy is a lot like JENGA. It’s human nature to always want things BIGGER and BETTER! The problem though is that, by removing blocks from the lower structure, we are eating away at the foundation of our communities. Sure, we can put another new Target, Amazon, or Home Depot at the top of our local towers, but – at what cost? What is left in our community’s foundation but a wobbly lattice ladder? Will we be left with one Wal-Mart sitting atop the rubble of unique independent local businesses?My point is simply this: There are only so many consumers in a town looking for (and able to consume) so many products and services. As we continue to choose which businesses our communities just can’t live without, I just ask that we all give a little thought to which critical pieces of the framework of our own towns might have to be removed in order to make room. Character, independence, community, diversity, innovation – these are all building blocks that our cities can’t be without.....

About Me

A healthy community depends on a healthy economy, and both completely depend on the local businesses in Racine & Kenosha! There are a number of great studies out there that illustrate how shopping locally will stimulate the Racine & Kenosha economies.

Simply put, more money spent with local businesses stays here (about 68%), where much less money spent with national chains stays in the area (only about 14%), and money spent online... well... simply leaves. Forever.